We publish test results whether or not they went well, and we do not issue a
release for anything that has not actually happened yet.
FULMAR-2 — QM3Run 41
Propulsion
FULMAR‑2 clears its 45-second qualification duty cycle
The third qualification model completed fourteen consecutive firings at Westcott
bay 3 between 21 July and 2 August, including three restarts within a single
simulated mission profile and one deliberate off-nominal mixture ratio run.
Chamber pressure held within 0.8 % of prediction across the campaign. The
only unplanned event was a ground-side pressure transducer that failed open on
run 39, which stopped the sequence as designed and cost the team an afternoon.
Delivery of the first three flight units is scheduled for November.
HALYARD‑400 picked for a second Earth-observation constellation
Six platforms, first delivery in Q3 2027, with an option on four more. The customer has asked us to hold the option open until after the first pair are on orbit, which seems fair.
Company
Rotherham takes delivery of a fifth five-axis cell
Commissioned in eleven days, which is a site record and mostly down to the fact that the foundations were poured a year early on a hunch.
Company
Westcott bay 3 reopens after a £6.2m rebuild
Maximum thrust doubles to 60 kN, with 96 channels of 2 kHz data acquisition and a new water-cooled deflector that should stop us resurfacing the apron every other year.
Avionics
SEINE 4.11 released, with a rewritten fault manager
The recovery sequencer has been separated from the fault detector so that a noisy sensor can no longer keep a spacecraft in survival mode. Four operators are already flying it.
Defence
LONGSHORE LS‑200 actuator completes 2.5 million cycles
Life testing finished 40 % above the required cycle count with backlash still inside tolerance. The gearbox has been stripped and the wear data published to the customer.
Space systems
HALYARD‑400E completes structural qualification
The electric propulsion variant survived protoflight vibration with the larger radiator fitted. First flight remains scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.
Propulsion
TERN‑1.2 finishes 6,800-hour endurance run
Total impulse of 1.9 MNs demonstrated on a single thruster. Channel erosion came in slightly better than the model, which we are treating with suspicion until the second unit finishes.
Company
RIPTIDE phase 3 results presented at Southampton
Two papers, one of them reporting a coating that failed rather earlier than we hoped. The questions afterwards were more useful than the talk.
Avionics
MARLIN‑3 passes 47 units in orbit
Cumulative on-orbit time across the fleet reaches 9.7 million hours with one watchdog reset, traced to a single-event upset in a memory region we have since moved.
Defence
Farnborough qualification laboratory opens to third-party work
Vibration, altitude, humidity and salt fog capacity is now available to other suppliers when our own programmes are not using it. Published rates, no minimum beyond a shift.
Space systems
Separation system qualified for 24-inch interface
Low-shock clamp band release qualified across temperature, with shock response spectrum data published alongside the datasheet rather than on request.
Company
Employee trust holding rises to 27 per cent
A further tranche of founder shares transferred to the employee benefit trust, with two shop-floor representatives elected as trustees at the same time.
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